<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Pain of the Past by FrozenWings</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25323421">The Pain of the Past</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenWings/pseuds/FrozenWings'>FrozenWings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Untitled Young Cassandra Series [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But not really fluff either, Gen, LITTLE CASS, One Shot, Retrograde Amnesia, Somewhere in the middle?, With complicated answers, i guess?, innocent questions, not really angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:42:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,173</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25323421</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenWings/pseuds/FrozenWings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As Captain of Corona's royal guard, not much rattles or surprises Cap. But one day Cassandra asks him a question that does both, and he comes to a sobering realization.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Captain of Corona's Guard &amp; Cassandra (Disney)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Untitled Young Cassandra Series [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817698</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Pain of the Past</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written in February 2020</p><p>I'm back, this time with a one-shot set when Cass is about five. This story was inspired by the apparent disconnect between what Cass reveals about her upbringing in 'Cassandra vs. Eugene' and what we saw in 'Rapunzel's Return,' namely that she most definitely did not come to live with Cap as a baby. After 'Islands Apart' aired (and made me an emotional wreck), all the pieces slotted together with the result being this fic! Enjoy</p><p>Like always, Cass, Cap, and the world of Tangled belongs to Disney.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He wasn’t sure exactly when it happened.</p><p>It just kind of snuck up on him, he guessed, like winter or adulthood. You don’t really think about it too much, then one day, all of a sudden, you realize that something’s changed and the world looks a little different (or a lot different, as the case may be). Usually such changes didn’t rattle him. They were a natural part of life to be conformed to or endured: you adapt to the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood or throw another log on the fire and wait for crocuses. This had always been his course in such scenarios, steady and unwavering and inalterable.</p><p>So why did this new change disturb him so?</p><p>The Lieutenant stared into the dying embers glowing in the fireplace, listening to the quiet breaths of Cassandra sleeping behind him in her bed, one hand clutching her stuffed owl, the other serving as a sort of pacifier as she sucked her thumb (which he guessed he should address, but since she only did it in her sleep he saw no harm in letting it continue until the habit died out on its own, which it should do. Right?). He shifted in his chair, glancing over his shoulder furtively as it creaked under his weight; Cassandra didn’t so much as stir. He sighed in relief and continued his study of the hearth. He cared for her more than he had ever thought possible and found that the time spent with her often was the highlight of his day, but right now he really needed a few moments of quiet to process the sobering occurrence of the afternoon.</p><p>It had started out innocently enough, as these things always seem to. Cassandra and him had been at the royal stables, watching the grooms put the horses through their paces. Cass had loved watching the proud mares and stallions trot and canter around the exercise ring and had listened attentively as the young men demonstrated to her how to run her hand over their fine legs to check for lameness and tell their age from their teeth. The Lieutenant smiled at the memory of how kindly Peder, whose strapping build belied the fact that he was youngest of the stable boys, hoisted her up to sit on the back of even-tempered Pietra. Cass had shouted with delight as her mount was walked and then trotted in circles, smiling with unbridled elation, onyx hair fluttering behind her. Cap had marveled at how at ease she was on horseback, not minding how she was bounced, hands firmly entwined in the heavy white mane. He had noted how proud she looked when Peder permitted her to lead Pietra back to her stall, keeping one practiced hand on the horse's neck as he handed off the lead rope to Cass. <i>She’ll likely make a fine horsewoman someday</i>, he had thought to himself as he watched her confident march to the low wooden building, the stocky mare dutifully trailing behind. Overall, it had been a fine day.</p><p>Until it happened.</p><p>Before heading back to the barracks where his (now their) apartment was situated, the stable master invited them to see the new colt that had just been born a few days prior. Juno had been all too pleased to show off her new son, moving aside of her own accord as though to give the Lieutenant and his daughter a better look. Cass had gasped in awe at the young animal, black coat standing out in stark contrast to his mother’s white one, and watched entranced as he stood on wobbly legs. He looked up at the young girl, standing stock still for a beat, before rapidly shaking his head and, giving a shrill whinny, began frisking about his stall, kicking up his heels and waving his bottle brush of a tail. Cass grinned and giggled at the sight, reaching our one pale hand to brush against his silky mane and satiny coat. Cap had stood quietly, deriving just as much amusement from his daughter’s pleasure as from the colt’s antics. Soon the foal began to tire and retreated back to the sanctuary of his mother, nuzzling her side as the sounds of suckling filled the stall. Cass didn’t seem ready to leave yet and they were in no rush, so he let his mind wander a bit. He had been idly debating if the colt’s hide would lighten to match Juno when a voice interrupted his thoughts.</p><p>“What happened to my mama?”</p><p>It was as though a bucket of ice-cold lake water had been dumped on him out of the blue. His mind instantly went blank with the shock of Cass’s question and it took him a moment to form a response. “What?” (he didn’t say it was a good response). “What happened to my mama?” Cass repeated, a little more insistent. Cap stared blankly at a  knot in the wood paneling on the stable wall. What did she mean by asking that? She knew what happened; she had watched her mother destroy the bridge leading to the isolated cottage before disappearing into the night like a phantom, kidnapped princess in tow. And she had spent nearly the entire ride back to Corona crying and calling for her. Maybe she meant where she was now?</p><p>Cass interpreted his pause as coming from a lack of clarity on her part, so she proceeded to explain her question more fully. “You know, a mama? The lady who loves the daddy and has babies and takes care of them? Juno’s the colt’s mama, Frau Dagmar is Frauline Dorothea’s mama, and a bunch of the kids in town have mamas. You can’t have a baby without a mama and a daddy, so I had to have had one, right?”</p><p>Sometimes he wished she wasn’t so precocious.</p><p>Still stupefied, he dumbly nodded his head in agreement, causing Cass to pose her question a third time. “So, what happened to mine?” For the first time since she spoke, he looked down at his daughter. She gazed up at him steadily in the dim light of the stable, awaiting his answer. To his surprise he saw no hint of sadness or anger in her gray-green eyes, not like he would have expected from a child who had been inconsolable over her mother abandoning her, only pure naive curiosity, as though she were asking where rain comes from. That’s when it hit him.</p><p>She really didn’t know.</p><p>She had forgotten her mother.</p><p>His thoughts raced at the realization: Cassandra had no recollection of her mother. How was that possible? It had only been last year when he had first seen her standing on the doorstep of the cottage, not a terribly long time ago. She had since proven herself to be an intelligent girl (albeit a bit of a hellion) with a good memory, often recalling minute details about conversations or places that he himself missed. Surely she couldn’t have forgotten a person and place that was such an important part of her life in a relatively short span of time, could she? He mulled this over. Captain Williams had told him years ago of the peculiar case of a man he once knew who, as a boy, had watched as his father was murdered by bandits on a deserted highway. Once he had recovered some time later from the ordeal, it had rapidly become apparent that he had no recollection of the incident, truly believing that his father had died from the rapid onset of an illness. Could that have happened to Cass? </p><p>Experimentally, he hazarded a question of his own. “What?” he asked in a falsely light tone. “You don’t remember? I thought you remembered everything.” “Daddy...”, she groaned theatrically, rolling her eyes. “I would have been a baby! Babies can’t remember anything!” The Lieutenant felt the color drain from his face and quickly turned back to the horses, hoping to hide the alarm in his eyes. Not only had she forgotten her mother, she had clearly forgotten her entire life before coming to the castle. As far as she knew, the cottage, the picturesque meadow it stood in and the glistening waterfall behind it had never existed; there had been nothing before the castle and the barracks and him. </p><p>The trauma of the night had apparently cut deeper than he had ever imagined. It had left a profound, painful wound in her mind that had scarred over in such a manner so as to seal away the memories it contained, saving her from the danger of reliving that pain again. And now here she was, asking him to fill in the gaps left by this self-protecting mechanism, staring with expectant eyes that he just knew were still trained on him despite his gaze lying elsewhere. What to tell her? He thought of simply saying ‘I don’t know,’ but he knew that wouldn’t satisfy his inquisitive daughter; she would just go ask someone else and, likely sooner rather than later, find out the truth in the bluntest, most indelicate way possible. No, he had to address this <i>now.</i> </p><p>Casting about in his mind for an answer, he surprised himself when he spoke. “I don’t quite honestly know. I just found you alone on the side of the road. I never saw your mother and have no idea what happened to her.” Every word of his reply was a lie, but Cass seemed oblivious. She simply said, “Oh,” then, pensive, resumed her study of the horses, pulling her black ponytail around to finger the strands as she thought. “So... you weren’t married to her?” </p><p>Thus had begun a string of uncomfortable questions that he tried to answer to the best of his ability (and in the shortest, quickest way possible). No, he had never been married. Yes, that meant she wasn’t technically related to him. However, regardless, she was his daughter, he was her daddy, and that’s all there was to it. She had furrowed her brow as she tried to make sense of this new facet to the world; the notion that someone could be a daddy to a person without ever knowing their mama was confusing, to put it mildly. The Lieutenant thought Cass looked like she had more questions on the topic, but, much to his relief, a sudden clatter from outside drew both of their attention, causing the horses to erupt in startled whinnies. Once the horses had been calmed and they had helped Carlos right his tipped-over cart, she seemed to have forgotten the conversation in the stable and he was perfectly content to let the subject drop. </p><p>But now, in the quiet of the night with only his thoughts and the remnants of a fire for company, his mind was free to wander and question and doubt. He replayed the conversation in his mind, analyzing his words as though they were a campaign. No matter how he looked at it, one thought stood out: he had lied to Cassandra. He <i>never</i> lied. Here he was, trying to raise his daughter to value honesty while lying to her face about where she came from. But what else was he do to? Just tell her “Oh, your mother abandoned you in favor of the princess she just abducted without a second glance?” Clearly, the night had been so traumatic that her young mind had erased not only all memory of it but all those leading up to it. Maybe this was some sort of proof that she was better off not knowing?</p><p>The old aphorism about ignorance being bliss certainly seemed to apply here. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that keeping her in the dark was the best course of action. When she first arrived at the castle it had taken her months to fully move past her grief, barely eating with her sleep being plagued by nightmares she never wanted to share, and he'd never forget the way she had screamed and howled when she first saw him preparing to ride across the bridge to the mainland; come to think of it, she had made remarkable progress since then. Telling her the truth and forcing her to relive that again may bring about a setback she would never fully recover from, and he just knew, despite Captain Williams’ assurances, that he was not equipped to handle that. Not again. The here and now was what mattered, not the past. He would teach her to focus on that, and, hopefully, this would be the last time she would broach the question of her birth mother.</p><p>With that he stood and extinguished the flickering embers, preparing to retire himself. As he waited for sleep to claim him, listening to Cass’s steady breaths, he considered his decision one last time. Yes, this was the right move. As far as he was concerned, Cass would grow up and live and die never knowing the truth.</p><p>What harm could come from that?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Golly, Cap, do you want an answer to that question?</p><p>One last note: I opted to use 'Frau' and 'Frauline' for the form of address Cass used when referring to the significant women in her life as a nod to the 'Rapunzel' fairytale's German roots despite the fact that, as far as I know, Corona isn't modeled off any particular geographic region (plus I simply liked how it sounded).</p><p>Anyway, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>